Dear reader,
Back in January, when I wrote to you about how the Dutch government “fell” but nothing really changed, I also promised that I’d explain the political system closer to election day.
Election day is next week on March 17, so I think it’s time to keep my promise.
Disclaimer: I should preface this by saying that I’m no expert; this is my understanding of how the system here works.
To be specific, the election is for the Tweede Kamer, which literally translates as “second chamber” but what it means is the lower house of the Parliament.
(As a side note, the Eerste Kamer, “first chamber” or upper house of Parliament, is only indirectly elected. Citizens vote for their provincial leaders – there are 12 provinces – and the provincial leaders choose the 75 members of the upper house.)
The Tweede Kamer
The lower house is where things get interesting. The Netherlands has a system of proportional democracy. That means that we vote for a party, and the parties get seats based on how many people voted for them.
I just checked the example ballot – see the photo below showing my feet for scale – and there are 33 parties listed across the top of the ballot. Each party has a list of candidates in a column under its name: some, the established parties like Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s VVD (Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie or People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy) and the D66 party (Democraten or Democrats founded in 1966), list as many as 80 candidates. The smallest on this election’s list only has one person listed: it’s the Feestpartij or “Party party,” which “strives for more positivity in this society.”
The first person on each list is the lijsttrekker, the party’s leader.
The Party Party has little or no chance of getting a seat in Parliament. Neither does the Jezus Leeft (Jesus Lives) party, which lists three candidates, nor the Piratenpartij (Pirates Party), which lists an extremely optimistic 28 candidates.
Anyone can set up a party, and many are focused on particular demographics: the Jong (Young) party, for example, and 50PLUS and the BBB (BoerBurgerBeleving or Farmer Citizen Experience). Of these 33 parties, only about half have any chance of getting even one seat in Parliament. The current Parliament has in total 15 parties represented, holding a range of 32 seats down to 1 single seat out of a total of 150 seats.
How the elections work
So here’s how it works. These are national elections, not by region. Each voter gets a single vote. Many people just vote at the top of each column for the party they prefer.
When the votes are counted, each party gets seats in Parliament based on how many votes they got. Those seats usually go to the people at the top of their list on the ballot. The VVD may have 80 names on their list, but if they get 32 seats – the same number they have in the current Parliament – then only the top 32 names on their list will actually sit in Parliament, including Mark Rutte, their lijsttrekker.
Voters can try to influence who actually gets the seats, though. Instead of choosing the party as a whole, we can instead vote for someone lower down the list. If enough people do that, it can move that person up in the list. An organization called Stem op een vrouw (Vote for a woman) encourages helping to increase the proportion of women in the Tweede Kamer by voting down-list. Let’s say, for example, I plan to vote GroenLinks (Green Party). The polls predict they’ll win between 11 and 13 seats, so I look down the list and vote for the first woman under that boundary.
How the government gets formed
Once the elections happen and the seats are assigned, the lijsttrekker of the party with the most seats still has work to do to form a government. It’s extremely unlikely for a single party to get more than 50% of the seats. As far as I can figure out, the last time that happened was 1891.
This forces the winning party’s leader, who will probably end up Prime Minister, to form a coalition. This can take months of negotiations among the biggest parties, sometimes bringing in smaller parties to add a vote or two. They agree on policy and also on things like cabinet positions.
In the last election, it took all the way from the election in mid-March until mid-October before a coalition government was formed among the VVD (center-right), the CDA (center-right Christian), the D66 (center) and the ChristenUnie (center Christian).
Keep in mind, by the way, that descriptions like “left” and “right” are different here than in the US. A moderate center-right party like the VVD might fit in a US model more closely with the moderate end of the Democratic Party.
The Netherlands vs. the US
This system, which makes it near impossible to get an absolute majority of seats, makes negotiation and compromise a necessity. Nothing can get done otherwise.
Having said that, people here talk about polarization just like in the US. What they are referring to here is the rise of the extreme-right parties, particularly Geert Wilders’ Partij voor de Vrijheid (Party for Freedom or PVV). None of the more mainstream parties, whether left or right, are willing to work with the PVV or similar extreme parties.
Americans and Dutch people often wonder why there aren’t more parties in the US. The lack of proportional democracy is one reason, and the need to get an actual majority in the Senate and House puts third parties at a huge disadvantage.
Another reason is the fact that voting is done regionally, by districts or states separately from the other districts or states. It makes sense in that context because it’s a much bigger country, and there are very real differences in attitudes and political beliefs in different regions. Pair that with the fact that running for office is incredibly costly, and most candidates, to have a hope of winning, have to go with one of the two powerful parties. The smaller parties just can’t compete with that sort of power.
Here in the Netherlands, running a campaign is less expensive. The population is only 17 million and the election campaign only lasts a month or so.
The Prime Minister vs. the President
The Prime Minister is usually the lijsttrekker of the party that got the most votes, but it isn’t required. Especially if the difference in seats isn’t that big, they might sacrifice that place in the negotiations that form the government with other parties.
That means that the election ends up being much less about personality and more about policy, a strong contrast to Presidential elections in the US. As I said, people vote primarily for the party and its platform, not the person.
Mark Rutte
Which brings us back to Mark Rutte. While his government resigned back in January, he’s still Prime Minister. And he’s still the lijsttrekker for the VVD. Will the VVD lose seats because of the scandal that brought down the government? Not according to the latest poll, which shows the VVD picking up a few more seats with about 25% of the votes. I’d guess that’s because he’s made a good impression in his straightforward approach to the Covid-19 pandemic.
So in other words, despite resigning along with his whole government just a couple of months ago as a result of a bureaucratic scandal, Mark Rutte stands a decent chance of remaining Prime Minister for the foreseeable future.
I’m curious what your thoughts are on this, especially if you are in the US. Please add your comments or questions about the election below, or if you’re a subscriber you can just hit reply and share your thoughts more privately with just me. Please keep it polite though!
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Met vriendelijke groeten (with friendly greetings),
Rachel
P.S. I write about independent travel at Rachel’s Ruminations. Please join me there!